Derek Boland (15 January 1965 – 15 November
2009), better known by his stage name as Derek B
was a British rapper.[1
][2]
His most commercially successful releases were "Goodgroove" and
"Bad Young Brother" in 1988.[3
]

He joined Simon
Harris' Music of
Liferecord
label, as the closest thing they had to an A&R man. When a planned
compilation of UShip hop called
Def Beats 1 (Music of Life, 1986) ran short of tracks,
Boland stepped in to record a track called "Rock the Beat". He
co-produced
the track with Harris, rapped on
it under the pseudonym, EZQ, and also did his own DJing under the
Derek B name. "Rock the Beat" (Music of Life, 1987) was released as
a single, and
was followed by three more - the most successful of which were
"Goodgroove" (Music of Life, 1988), and "Bad Young Brother", both
of which reached #16 in the UK Singles Chart.[3
] Derek B's third and final UK chart entry was
"We've Got The Juice", which peaked at #56.[3
]

Derek B was the first UKrapper to achieve pop success,[1
] appearing on BBC Television's Top of the
Pops, at a time when the only other rappers who had
appeared were Break
Machine and Doug
E. Fresh. He received criticism for rapping under an assumed
American accent, something which was popular in the early days of
British hip hop, but later abandoned. [4]

Following his chart success, Derek B was signed up to
Rush Artist Management and released singles and the album, Bullet From a Gun
(Tuff Audio, 1988).